A few weeks ago now I was reflecting about church and had an image in my mind of an orange. All my life I have been involved in church life trying to make it as juicy as possible – helping to make the worship relevant or contemporary, being involved in social programs, modernising our buildings, updating our use of technology, learning about leading services and preaching, trying to run vibrant house groups. It has been a good journey and I know that God has blessed many of our efforts and ideas. At times we have felt inspired.

The aim of all this commitment and endeavour has been to help make the inside of the orange (the church) as juicy as possible, as attractive as possible, as meaningful as possible and our hope has been that in doing so we would attract more people to join us on the inside of the orange, form a living relationship with God/Jesus and join church. We have prayed about this, sung about this and worked for this with all our effort.

All this has placed me right at the centre of the orange (the church) and I have been ordained as one of it’s ‘ministers’ or ‘priests’ and now, with responsibility for my own ‘church’ I have set about trying to make this particular orange as juicy as it can be here in Twerton.

This has been good and important. And not wanting to devalue any of this effort, or anyone else’s commitment, I now believe that God is wanting us to completely rethink what it means to be the church.

For years ‘church’ has been a building, a service, a program provider or an institution. From here on we need to see it as a people on a mission. For years ‘church’ has been something we went to, attended or helped to make. From now on we need to see it as something we belong to and participate in. The change is from seeing church as a club to seeing it as a team. Just as a football club is something people organise, watch, contribute to and maintain and a football team is something you belong to and participate in, we need to see church as a team where everyone is involved in working towards a goal.

What we need to do is turn this orange inside out. For years the juice has been kept and maintained on the inside of our church buildings, our church services and our church programs. From now on we need to open up the orange and get the juice on the outside – into people’s lives, our workplaces and our neighbourhoods.

This is a completely new way of seeing church and will require us to give up our old ideas and practices and systems. ‘Minister’ will no longer be a title given to just one or two but instead owned by everyone. ‘Disciple’ will no longer be something the super keen sign up for but will be the normal Christian life. ‘Worship’ will no longer be something we go to for an hour but a life lived in adoration to God and in response to his love. ‘Mission’ will no longer be something cringey that only the bravest and craziest of us do but the very foundation of our community life together.

And it is to this mission that we will begin to invite others to join us in. It is to this life that we will now invite people to commit to. It is to this ‘order’ that we will invite people to shape their life around. Instead of asking people to come to church we will be asking if they want to participate in the life we are living, centred on Jesus, focused on blessing our neighbourhood, and oriented around seeing the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

It is time to get the juice out, to step outside our church buildings and structures and services and to give ourselves away to people in need around us. And by our love for one another, for our neighbours and for our God perhaps at last many will again know us to be ‘Jesus’ disciples’ rather than just people ‘who go to church’.

Undoubtedly it will mean a few of the things we currently cherish will fall away or be less highly prioritised. So be it. May God help us as we start to peel away the skin and open ourselves to the reality of people’s life, letting go of our desire to be a church on that meets together and becoming a church that meets the needs of others.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for there is the kingdom of heaven.

This is what the story is about…

And it is what we are about here as a church in Twerton

We have a simple purpose:

• to connect ourselves to God and
• to connect ourselves with others and
• to connect others up with God

We need to keep it simple – it’s about CONNECTION!

The way we do this is to embody the message of Jesus and to proclaim the message of Jesus.

We embody the message in numerous ways – through how we live together, through how we behave, through how we speak, through how we worship, how we care, how we respond to needs, how we love one another.

We proclaim the message through words – at work, at the school gate, at home with our children, at funerals, at weddings, at Rose Cottage and the Rec House – telling people of God’s good news for their lives.

This past week we celebrated another year together and elected new representatives to oversee our life together.  We reviewed what God has been doing and we reminded ourselves of our mission – to be connected.  We are excited about the year ahead.  Join us.

For a start it shapes the way I see God. It demonstrates to me that he is more powerful than death – that other counterfeit power that takes us all one day and stakes a claim to be the power above all powers.  It tells me that God is passionate about his creation, about the earth, about people, about flesh – that he has not left it alone, that he has not forgotten it, that he hasn’t written it off, or thrown it away.  It tells me that God is faithful – that he never goes back on a promise – that he can be trusted.  It tells me that God is joyful – that he is alive with joy

And then it shapes the way I see suffering… my own, and that of others:
Cancer, Parkinsons, Dementia, broken bones, broken hearts, broken lives, abused, and beaten, even killed.
Children, adults, the elderly.
The empty tomb shouts back at the forces of evil, of violence and of anger
It hits back against the wave of fear that sweeps across us all every time we experience pain
The empty tomb cries ‘Victory!’
My body may break, I may suffer, but God is greater.
Death does not have the last word, Life does… Jesus does
‘The enemy comes to steal and to destroy and to kill
But I have come to give you Life’, said Jesus…
The empty tomb says he was right.
And so I confidently say, “Greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.”

And it shapes my hope, my hope for a world made new,
giving it colour and form and texture, making it real.
Not a world of spirit alone, but a world where heaven and earth are married in beautiful life
Not a world of tears, but a world of dancing, and joy
Not a world of violence, but a world of peace
The empty tomb draws me forward to this world, this new world, this world of life, where death and tears are no more, believing its existence, believing its arrival, believing its reality.

And it shapes the way I see Jesus
Not as a victim, but as a warrior
Not as weak, but as the strongest man there ever could be
Not as mere man, but also as God’s son
Not only as friend, but also as Saviour, and Ransom, and Redeemer, and Victor, and Lord

The empty tomb shapes everything for me…
It shapes the way I live, my behaviour, my choices
The risks I take, the place I bring up my family, the way I spend my money,
the approach I take to possessions, the amount I give away.
The empty tomb makes all kinds of things plausible and possible – wild things, crazy things, ridiculous things, adventurous things.
Things that others would think of as mad, as stupid, as folly.
“I am alive with Christ. For me to live is Christ. To die is gain.”
That could only be true if there was an empty tomb

And it shapes my ethics, my morality, my judgements and discernment about what is right, what is wrong.
It shapes the way I use my body, the places I take it, the way I use it, for if I am united to Christ – raised with him – this has implications!
And it affects the things I think about, the way I use my mind – “Since, I have been raised with Christ, I set my heart on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God… and I set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. For I died, and my life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

But it’s more than that… the open tomb opens things up.
It shatters my fears, my expectations, the boxes I put around things
And it opens up new possibilities, new relationships, new directions
It re-orientates me
It restores me
It redeploys me

My life is no longer my own. I have been bought with a price. It convinces me that Jesus died for me and I am his. that he has declared me free of judgement, that he has forgiven my sin, that he has born the debt and he has cancelled the written code that hung over me, condemned me. It persuades me that he has atoned for me, covered my sin, taken it way, washed me whiter than snow. I am his and he is mine. He lives in me and my life is his. The empty tomb has done all this.

And it sends me out… for through the empty tomb I have been commissioned, given a role. I have authorised, gifted, equipped. I have been enlisted and enrolled. I have signed up. His mission is now mine. His message is now mine. His purpose is now mine. His life is now mine. His way of doing things is now mine. His approach is now mine. His will is now mine. Jesus has promised me his Spirit, his breath, his life, to flow through me, drawing me into relationship with the Father.

The empty tomb is everything for me…
It is my past and it is my future
It is my present occupation
It is everything.
I am an Easter person, a ‘new day’ person, a ‘Christian’
I live in the first of the week, trying to make my life point towards those great truths – the resurrection of Jesus and the life of the world to come…
I reign in life through Jesus’ life.
I receive his life – his humility, love and forgiveness, his integrity, his wisdom, strength, joy, his union with the Father. Christ is now my life, the one who strengthens me.
I receive it with thanks and give it total claim to my spirit, soul, body, my heart, mind and will.

The empty tomb shapes everything
The resurrection is everything to me
It’s all I have to boast in.
It’s all I live for
It’s all I rest in
It’s all I believe in

I mentioned briefly on Sunday a few ideas for helping us to engage with the amazing story of this week and thought I might put some of them on the website as I wasn’t the most articulate at that point…

Like many of us (most of us?) I need help to dig deep into the Easter story and making it personal to me, alive… Getting together with others who want to explore the themes with me or to chat about them always helps and that is why we are having a few specific meetings this week looking at the story together. On Thursday night we are looking at the last supper and the events just after that… on Friday morning at 10am we are going to focus on the walk to the cross and the death of Jesus… and on Sunday we are going to celebrate the resurrection together as a family with breakfast between the two services at 10.30. Come ready to listen, to reflect, to pray, to pray, to give thanks, to explore… On a lighter note I imagine, Clare and others are going to open up Rose Cottage on Easter evening, from 5pm, for a bring and share supper : )

Check out the services at other churches too that might connect – Bath Abbey are putting on some beautiful services around music that some are thinking of going to, such as St Matthew’s passion on Wednesday night…

As well as gathering as a big group how about getting together with one or two others and having an ‘Easter Chat’ or something like that – a time to discuss with a couple of others the impact of Jesus death and resurrection on your lives and to pray together rooting it’s benefits in your lives. Tory and I have been using a daily prayer Tory found, written by John Eldredge, which we are loving. If you haven’t picked up a copy over the last few weeks, then you can download it from the website here

If you want to read something online try these short daily readings from beliefnet

Or how about giving up a few minutes to reflect using this haunting flash narration of Jesus’ passion and death with illustrations and quotes… here

There are loads of other resources online, so enjoy searching out good ones… and if you find any that help, send me the link : )

Others of us might like to use art or music to express something, and others still might find it helpful to write a letter to God or to do some other kind of written reflection…

Over all, the aim is not to do a whole load of religious or spiritual stuff – it is simply to find a way of helping yourself to reconnect with this truest of all stories that changes our world and our lives.

Live it. Pray it. Love it.

Have a great week
Rich

As we journey together as a church family we want to encourage each other with stories of what we see God doing in our lives.  Simple stories, simply told. Real. Authentic.

To help us in all this we are going to make sure that each week we hear from each other when we meet.  So come ready to share your stories.  Get used to looking out for the workings of God and listen out for what the Spirit is saying to us as a family being shaped into the life of Jesus.

This Sunday is normal (if there is ever a normal Sunday here!), and I am going to be looking a the Sower in the last of our ‘Level Teaching’ series…
The week after (25th October) we are going to have a healing service where the focus will be on us praying for each other and blessing one another in Jesus’ name.

On the 1st November Louise and Toby are going to be baptised with Dan reaffirming his vows… Always a great time – if there is anyone else who wants to be baptised let me know.

Then over the next 4 weeks I have invited 4 church leaders from across the city
Paul Langham – 8th November
Patrick Whitworth – 15th November
Stewart Keiller – 22nd November
Paul Wakely - 29th November

What quality!

I invited them along time ago – back in May – to come and speak into our situation, to bring a blessing and to pray for us in Twerton. They may well bring a few of their churches to come too to join them… It should be good as we listen for what God is saying to us from leaders outside our situation and whom we respect.

So in all in all 7 weeks of Sundays all jammed packed with goodies…

Bring your friends, invite others who are local Christians to listen too (it’s not just for St Michael’s) and join me as we listen out for what God is saying together…

Looking forward to them all
God bless
Rich

Oh and here’s a picky to forward to your mates : )

Since January we have been trying out a whole new way of organising our services on Sunday mornings.  We are really excited about these new changes. if you want to find out more about all this, then click here.

From now on (except for the first Sunday of the month) the gatherings will begin with 45mins of worship (readings, prayers, songs, stillness, visuals, meditations, breaking bread etc) followed by a ‘Doughnut Break’ for about 30mins, followed by a time of learning together (the ‘talky bit’). (see podcasts)

On the first Sunday of every month we have what we have called ‘Sunday Live!’ (I think after a Saturday morning TV show some years back).  Regardless of the name, we will increasingly use this time to hear form the various missional communities, to pray for them, prophesy over them, encourage them and ask for God’s blessing on them. In this way we hope that the various smaller groups will feel part of the bigger community and the bigger community will feel part of the smaller groups.

We really hope that these changes will help us all connect with God and each other in an increasingly rich way… and that our lives continued to get shaped by Jesus in the process…

Everyone is welcome to join us as we explore life with God together.

We want our church here in Twerton to be known for what happens on Mondays not Sundays.

On Mondays we are involved in God’s mission. On Mondays we are praying and connecting with God, on our own and with others. On Mondays we are engaged with the problems of our neighbours and our friends. On Mondays we are wondering what God is prompting us to do or say or think about. On Mondays we are at work, or at home or at the school and we are aware that God is with us and that we represent him.

On Mondays we are pouring ourselves out for the sake of our world, trying to follow Jesus’ example. On Mondays we are praying in the spirit as much as we can so as not to miss out on being a messenger of God’s kingdom. On Mondays we are making decisions about how to live, how to act, how to think. On Mondays we are avoiding bad things and embracing good things. On Mondays we are with the poor.

On Mondays we are depending on God’s grace for what we do, knowing that nothing we do with out him counts for much. On Mondays we are guiding our children and creating the right environment for them to grow up in. On Mondays we are spending our money wisely and giving our money away. On Mondays we are engaged in our world. On Mondays we welcome in the stranger and the lonely.

On Mondays we read the bible for our personal development and to feed our soul. On Mondays we reflect and sit and think. On Mondays we phone up our friends and eat with others. On Mondays we decide what to watch on TV and what not to watch. On Mondays we are grateful for all that God has done for us and prayerful for everything that is out of sorts in our lives. On Mondays we try to resist sin and when we sin we confess it.

On Mondays we laugh and joke. On Mondays we exercise. On Mondays we call in on those in need and cull up those who need a chat. On Mondays we take rest seriously and leave tomorrows worries to tomorrow. On Mondays we wake, we work, we play, we relax, we sleep. On Mondays we live life… life with Jesus…

Making Monday special is our aim.

And Sundays is another thing all together.

Check out this video… it’s one guy’s way of telling the story…

The centre and circumference of the Christian life is none other than the person of Christ. All other things, including things related to him and about him, are eclipsed by the sight of his peerless worth. Knowing Christ is Eternal Life. And knowing him profoundly, deeply, and in reality, as well as experiencing his unsearchable riches, is the chief pursuit of our lives, as it was for the first Christians. God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ.

Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his teachings. Aristotle says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Socrates says to his disciples, “Follow my teachings.” Buddha says to his disciples, “Follow my meditations.” Confucius says to his disciples, “Follow my sayings.” Muhammad says to his disciples, “Follow my noble pillars.” Jesus says to his disciples, “Follow me.” In all other religions, a follower can follow the teachings of its founder without having a relationship with that founder. Not so with Jesus Christ. The teachings of Jesus cannot be separated from Jesus himself. Jesus Christ is still alive and he embodies his teachings. It is a profound mistake, therefore, to treat Christ as simply the founder of a set of moral, ethical, or social teaching. The Lord Jesus and his teaching are one. The Medium and the Message are One. Christ is the incarnation of the Kingdom of God and the Sermon on the Mount.

God’s grand mission and eternal purpose in the earth and in heaven centres in Christ . . . both the individual Christ (the Head) and the corporate Christ (the Body). This universe is moving towards one final goal – the fullness of Christ where He shall fill all things with himself. To be truly missional, then, means constructing one’s life and ministry on Christ. He is both the heart and bloodstream of God’s plan. To miss this is to miss the plot; indeed, it is to miss everything.

Being a follower of Jesus does not involve imitation so much as it does implantation and impartation. Incarnation-the notion that God connects to us in baby form and human touch–is the most shocking doctrine of the Christian religion. The incarnation is both once-and-for-all and ongoing, as the One “who was and is to come” now is and lives his resurrection life in and through us. Incarnation doesn’t just apply to Jesus; it applies to every one of us. Of course, not in the same sacramental way. But close. We have been given God’s “Spirit” which makes Christ “real” in our lives. We have been made, as Peter puts it, “partakers of the divine nature.” How, then, in the face of so great a truth can we ask for toys and trinkets? How can we lust after lesser gifts and itch for religious and spiritual thingys? We’ve been touched from on high by the fires of the Almighty and given divine life. A life that has passed through death – the very resurrection life of the Son of God himself. How can we not be fired up?

To put it in a question: What was the engine, or the accelerator, of the Lord’s amazing life? What was the tap-root or the headwaters of his outward behaviour? It was this: Jesus lived by an indwelling Father. After his resurrection, the passage has now moved. What God the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to you and to me. He’s our indwelling Presence, and we share in the life of Jesus’ own relationship with the Father. There is a vast ocean of difference between trying to compel Christians to imitate Jesus and learning how to impart an implanted Christ. The former only ends up in failure and frustration. The latter is the gateway to life and joy in our daying and our dying. We stand with Paul: “Christ lives in me.” Our life is Christ. In him do we live, breathe, and have our being. “What would Jesus do?” is not Christianity. Christianity asks: “What is Christ doing through me … through us? And how is Jesus doing it?” Following Jesus means “trust and obey” (respond), and living by his indwelling life through the power of the Spirit.

The “Jesus of history” cannot be disconnected from the “Christ of faith.” The Jesus who walked the shores of Galilee is the same person who indwells the church today. There is no disconnect between the Jesus of Mark’s Gospel and the incredible, all-inclusive, cosmic Christ of Paul’s letter to the Colossians. The Christ who lived in the first century has a pre-existence before time. He also has a post-existence after time. He is Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, A and Z, all at the same time. He stands in the future and at the end of time at the same moment that He indwells every child of God. Failure to embrace these paradoxical truths has created monumental problems and has diminished the greatness of Christ in the eyes of God’s people.
It’s possible to confuse “the cause” of Christ with the person of Christ. When the early church said “Jesus is Lord,” they did not mean “Jesus is my core value.” Jesus isn’t a cause; he is a real and living person who can be known, loved, experienced, enthroned and embodied. Focusing on his cause or mission doesn’t equate focusing on or following him. It’s all too possible to serve “the god” of serving Jesus as opposed to serving him out of an enraptured heart that’s been captivated by his irresistible beauty and unfathomable love. Jesus led us to think of God differently, as relationship, as the God of all relationship.

Jesus Christ was not a social activist nor a moral philosopher. To pitch him that way is to drain his glory and dilute his excellence. Justice apart from Christ is a dead thing. The only battering ram that can storm the gates of hell is not the cry of Justice, but the name of Jesus. Jesus Christ is the embodiment of Justice, Peace, Holiness, Righteousness. He is the sum of all spiritual things, the “strange attractor” of the cosmos. When Jesus becomes an abstraction, faith loses its reproductive power. Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live.

It is possible to confuse an academic knowledge or theology about Jesus with a personal knowledge of the living Christ himself. These two stand as far apart as do the hundred thousand million galaxies. The fullness of Christ can never be accessed through the frontal lobe alone. Christian faith claims to be rational, but also to reach out to touch ultimate mysteries. The cure for a big head is a big heart.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with CliffsNotes for a systematic theology. He leaves his disciples with breath and body.
Jesus does not leave his disciples with a coherent and clear belief system by which to love God and others. Jesus gives his disciples wounds to touch and hands to heal.

Jesus does not leave his disciples with intellectual belief or a “Christian worldview.” He leaves his disciples with a relational faith.

Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.

The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love.

Only Jesus can transfix and then transfigure the void at the heart of the church. Jesus Christ cannot be separated from his church. While Jesus is distinct from his Bride, he is not separate from her. She is in fact his very own Body in the earth. God has chosen to vest all of power, authority, and life in the living Christ. And God in Christ is only known fully in and through his church. (As Paul said, “The manifold wisdom of God – which is Christ – is known through the ekklesia.”)

The Christian life, therefore, is not an individual pursuit. It’s a corporate journey. Knowing Christ and making him known is not an individual prospect. Those who insist on flying life solo will be brought to earth, with a crash. Thus Christ and his church are intimately joined and connected. What God has joined together, let no person put asunder. We were made for life with God; our only happiness is found in life with God. And God’s own pleasure and delight is found therein as well.

In a world which sings, “Oh, who is this Jesus?” and a church which sings, “Oh, let’s all be like Jesus,” who will sing with lungs of leather, “Oh, how we love Jesus!”

If Jesus could rise from the dead, we can at least rise from our bed, get off our couches and pews, and respond to the Lord’s resurrection life within us, joining Jesus in what he’s up to in the world.

We call on others to join us–not in removing ourselves from planet Earth, but to plant our feet more firmly on the Earth while our spirits soar in the heavens of God’s pleasure and purpose. We are not of this world, but we live in this world for the Lord’s rights and interests. We, collectively, as the ekklesia of God, are Christ in and to this world.

May God have a people on this earth who are a people of Christ, through Christ, and for Christ. A people of the cross. A people who are consumed with God’s eternal passion, which is to make his Son pre-eminent, supreme, and the head over all things visible and invisible. A people who have discovered the touch of the Almighty in the face of his glorious Son. A people who wish to know only Christ and him crucified, and to let everything else fall by the wayside. A people who are laying hold of his depths, discovering his riches, touching his life, and receiving his love, and making HIM in all of his unfathomable glory known to others.

The two of us may disagree about many things–be they ecclesiology, eschatology, soteriology, not to mention economics, globalism and politics.
But in our two most recent books–From Eternity to Here and So Beautiful–we have sounded forth a united trumpet. These books are the Manifests to this Manifesto. They each present the vision that has captured our hearts and that we wish to impart to the Body of Christ– “This ONE THING I know” (Jn.9:25) that is the ONE THING that unites us all:

Jesus the Christ.

Christians don’t follow Christianity; Christians follow Christ.
Christians don’t preach themselves; Christians proclaim Christ.
Christians don’t point people to core values; Christians point people to the cross.
Christians don’t preach about Christ: Christians preach Christ.

Over 300 years ago a German pastor wrote a hymn that built around the Name above all names:

Ask ye what great thing I know,
that delights and stirs me so?
What the high reward I win?
Whose the name I glory in?
Jesus Christ, the crucified.

This is that great thing I know;
this delights and stirs me so:
faith in him who died to save,
His who triumphed o’er the grave:
Jesus Christ, the crucified.

Jesus Christ – the crucified, resurrected, enthroned, triumphant, living Lord.
He is our Pursuit, our Passion, and our Life.
Amen.